December 11, 2010

Media Contact: (713) 418-0897

adams_mo@tsu.edu

The State of Black Houston (SBH) “Opinion Leader”

Survey
Key Findings from a survey of 118 African-American "opinion leaders"
attending the State of Black Houston Town Hall Meeting at Texas Southern
University, October 14, 2010. The survey was conducted by Texas
Southern University Professors Karen Callaghan, Carroll G. Robinson, and
Michael O. Adams.

Topics: Houston Mayor's Reelection, Presidential Primary Election, the

War in Afghanistan.

The African-American opinion leaders who attended the SBH Town Hall Meeting
from various segments of the community as shown in the figure below. Despite this
mix of participants, there is consensus on the issues, though not all.

Business,
Community and
Political Leaders,
College Professors,
NAACP Members,
Other Groups and

Mass Public

• Most opinion leaders are ambivalent about their support for Mayor Annise
Parker's reelection. Her strongest support comes from younger men.

• If the 2012 Democratic presidential primaries were held today and the
race was between President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, the election would be declared "no contest"—Obama would lead
with Clinton trailing by 82 percentage points.

• Few respondents favor a troop surge in Afghanistan. However, most reject

an immediate "pullout" in favor of bringing the troops home within a year.
The latter view appears to be in line with the stated principles of the
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

Houston Mayoral Election 2011

Unlike the loyalty opinion leaders display for Bill White and Barack Obama,
support for Mayor Annise Parker's reelection is not particularly crystalized,
especially among younger females. Her strongest support comes from
younger men (47%). And while 32% of Democrats favor Parker's reelection,
nearly one-quarter (24%) oppose it, 44% are undecided. Independents
oppose her reelection by nearly a 2 to 1 margin (41% to 18%), while 41% are
undecided. The mayor and her political advisors have time before the next
election to address opinion leaders' concerns about her leadership,
especially those of African-American women and political independents.

"Would you like to see Annise Parker reelected Mayor of Houston?"

All Opinion
Leaders By Gender

* p< .05
*p < .05

By Party ID Mayor's Reelection By Age

and Gender

Yes
No Dk/Ref Younger Men
47% 24% 29%
Older Men 23%
36% 41% Younger Women
22% 22% 55%
Older Women 38%
21% 42%

* p< .08

Presidential Primary Election 2012

In response to the question: "If the 2012 Democratic primary elections for
president were held today, who would you vote for?" Black opinion leaders

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strongly favor President Barack Obama over Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton (88% to 6%) with slightly stronger support from Democrats (90%)
than Independents (82%). Support for Obama is not distinguishable by
gender, age or level of education. Although people often have multiple
interests and identities that affect their political views, the opinion leaders in
this study have reached a consensus on their loyalty to President Obama.

African-American voters were not strongly supportive of Obama when he first

ran for office. Hillary Clinton was the favorite. Now he appears to be well
grounded in the African-American community in terms of its political support
and loyalty. The big change opinion came after Former President Bill Clinton
associated the words “fairy tale” with the Obama campaign. Though he
recanted later on during a radio interview with Al Sharpton saying he was not
refering to Obama’s presidential campaign but to his ideas on war the shift in
support happened. This is when Black voters really started to rally around
Obama.

The War in Afghanistan

The survey included two questions which are useful for gauging elite African-
American opinion on the war in Afghanistan. The first question asked about
sending more troops to Afghanistan. A large percentage of respondents
(82%) reject a troop surge, especially women, younger opinon leaders, those
without a college degree, and Democrats.

"In your view, should the U.S. send more troops to

Afghanistan?"

All Opinion
Leaders

* p< .01

By By
Gender Age

3
 By Party
ID

*p < .11 *p < .08

By By Party
Education

*p < .01 *p < .11

The second question asked:

"What should the plan for U.S. troops in Afghanistan be?"

Bring troops home immediately. 31%

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 Develop a firm timetable to bring troops home within a year. 54%

Do not have a firm timetable for troop withdrawal. 7%

Don't Know/Refused 8%

The second option implies some support for the current United States policy
of military involvement in Afghanistan. President Obama has identified July
2011 as the start date for troop withdrawal. Less than a third of the sample
supports an immediate withdrawal of troops while 7% do not favor a firm
timetable. Even the group generally most resistent to military action—
women—do not strongly favor the immediate pullout option. Furthermore,
there are no differences in opinion by age groups: both younger and older
respondents favor bringing the troops home within a year. The opinions of
Democrats and independents are also statsticially indistinct (labeled “ns” or
non-significant findings).
By Gender

*ns
By Party ID

*ns

By Age

5
 *ns

Karen Callaghan, a professor at TSU whose field is political psychology, says

that "opinion leaders seem to be saying: “We supported you in the 2008
election. We are trying to stay faithful to you now, not only in the electoral
arena but on the war front, at least on some issues.” Furthermore, these
findings appear to be consistent with the stated principles of the
Congressional Black Caucus." From the CBC's website: On February 24,
2009, the CBC met with President Obama to express its support in the United
States’ struggle against extremism. The Caucus fully supported President
Obama’s commitment to reduce the US military presence in Iraq. For
Afghanistan, the Caucus stressed to the President the necessity to carefully
consider a new strategy, utilize all elements of national power, and develop
sound metrics to measure progress for the conflict (2009 Annual Report,
p.20,
http://thecongressionalblackcaucus.lee.house.gov/reports/CBCYearEndReport
2009.pdf).
Nearly half of the Congressional Black Caucus (49%) voted against a bill
(HR248) to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2010. Forty-
six percent were in favor of the bill, with two abstentions.
Of course, given the condition of the economy and the high unemployment
rate, war is off the radar screen for most African Americans. However, a lack
of focus on the war should not be confused with a lack of opinion. On the
contrary, opinion leaders in this study have distinct opinions.
Description and Survey Methodology

Principal Investigators: Dr. Karen Callaghan, Dr. Michael O. Adams, Carroll

Robinson, Esq.

Purpose: TSU, a special purpose institution with an urban mission, is centrally

located in Houston, the 4th largest city in the U.S. Michael Adams says that “the
changing demographics of Houston as a majority-minority city continues to

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demonstrate a need to understand political opinion and civic engagement trends in
the African-American community to ensure it is better served.”

Karen Callaghan adds that "the focus on African-American opinion leaders is

important. People often follow the lead of individuals who are better informed and
more engaged in politics than they are. The influence of opinion leaders is derived
from the informal status as individuals who are highly informed, respected and
simply 'connected.' Opinion leaders influence the thinking of others predominantly
through agenda setting—i.e., cueing messages that alert people about which policy
issues and political candidates should be attended to. They may also inform people
about which policy issues and candidates are consistent with their values or the
reality of the situation. Generally, public opinion is strongest when elite consensus
is strongest and less strong when elite consensus is less strong or non-existent.

Survey Methodology: The survey was conducted in person on the day of the
town hall meeting. The cooperation rate is 56% based on 210 participants (est.). No
demographic information is available on the survey nonrespondents. Based on the
sample design, this is a purposive sample. A purposive sample is a sample that is
selected in a deliberative and non-random fashion to achieve a certain goal.
Therefore, this survey is subject to the same limitations facing nonprobability
samples, which include the commonly employed web surveys where respondents
are solicited and participate via the Internet. With nonprobability samples the
relationship between the sample and the population is unknown so there is no
theoretical basis for computing or reporting a margin of sampling error or for
knowing how representative the survey participants are of the target population.
Still, the data are useful for two reasons: (1) hypothesis generation–to develop ideas
to be substantiated with more robust datasets drawn from random samples, and (2)
the exploratory analysis of relationships between variables, with the caveat that the
results may be only narrowly extrapolated and may not generalize to the population
of all African-American opinion leaders in Houston. However, to substantiate our
findings, we conducted tests of statistical significance and highlight sequences of
percentages that are non-random and associations that do not occur with equal
probability with p < .10 used as the standard cutoff in most cases.

Demographic Profile: Fully 87 % of the respondents have a two

year college degree or higher. Figty-eight percent have a family
income above $40,000. Sixty one percent of the sample is female.
Seventy-one percent are Democrats, 23% are Independents and
less than 2% are Republicans. The median age of the sample is 38
years old. Only 2.5% of the sample say they are not registered
voters. The numerical preponderance of female opinon leaders
attending the meeting may reflect the fact that women have
historically been more politically engaged, at least at the base of
African-American civic and political life in Houston and elsewhere.

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Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the meeting attendees
who participated in the survey and to Jew Don Boney, Director of
the Mickey Leland Center, for allowing us to conduct this research.
We also thank our research assistants Eboni Barnes, Quonna
Coleman, Subria Lapps, and Simone Parker

Karen Callaghan, Ph.D. Political Science Professor, Texas

Southern University. Callaghan recently returned from Afghanistan
where she conducted surveys for the U.S. Defense Department.
Fields of Research: Political Psychology/Behavior and
Methodology. Cell: (713) 328-9584. callaghank@tsu.edu

Michael O. Adams, Ph.D. Public Administration Professor,

Texas Southern University and Director of the E-Government
Center,the Master of Public Administration program and the
Executive MPA program. Phone: (713) 418-0897.
adams_mo@tsu.edu

Carroll G. Robinson, Esq. Public Administration Professor, Texas

Southern University, Chairman of the Houston Citizens Chamber
of Commerce, former At-Large member of the Houston City
Council, former General Counsel of the Texas Democratic Party
and a Democratic candidate for Congress in 2002.